Recently I was talking to an entrepreneur about the critical metrics they track (also called KPIs). As we got into it, I realized they were tracking their metrics on a monthly basis, and not a weekly basis. Hmm, I thought, a month is much too long of a time period for tracking the things that are truly critical to the business. In addition, these metrics are mostly forward-looking items that are a precursor to what shows up in the financial statements (which are backward-looking), so it’s important to know if something is off as soon as possible.
Here are a few thoughts on why it’s important to track critical metrics weekly:
- Metrics typically have a relationship with other metrics (e.g. a percentage of marketing qualified leads become sales qualified leads and customer satisfaction scores relate to customer renewal rates) making it important to know if something’s not right quickly
- It often takes multiple reporting periods to see if something is trending the wrong way, making monthly reporting too long of a time frame
- Teams usually meet weekly, making a weekly metric cadence timely (and helps foster a culture of accountability)
Check out the Google Sheet for KPI Dashboards and track critical metrics weekly.
What else? What are some more thoughts on tracking metrics weekly?
David Cummings on Startups 